Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner

Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner (19 February 1953-) was President of Argentina from 10 December 2007 to 10 December 2015, succeeding Nestor Kirchner and preceding Mauricio Macri. The wife of Nestor Kirchner, she was a member of the left-wing of the Justicialist Party, heading the Kirchnerist "Front for Victory" faction. Despite being implicated in several corruption scandals, she was elected Vice-President under Alberto Fernandez in 2019.

Biography
Cristina Fernandez was born in La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina on 19 February 1953, and she married Nestor Kirchner after meeting him in law school. She moved to Patagonia with her husband upon graduation, and she was elected to the provincial legislature while her husband served as Mayor of Rio Gallegos. She was elected Senator in 1995 while her husband served as Governor of Santa Cruz Province, and she was First Lady during her husband's presidency from 2003 to 2007. In 2007, her husband stepped down so that his wife could run for the presidency, and Cristina was victorious as the Front for Victory candidate. Her proposed taxation system was rejected at the start of her presidency, and she also entered into a conflict with the agricultural sector. She nationalized private pension funds and fired the president of the Central Bank, and she renationalized the YPF energy firm after the country lost its self-supply of energy. Her government implemented the universal allocation per child, increased the budget for science and research, and supported gay rights by legalizing same-sex marriages. The middle class of Argentina doubled during her term, and she continued the prosecution of Dirty War criminals, convicting 1,000 people and sentencing 500. However, she faced several corruption scandals, including the obstruction of the investigation into the 1994 AMIA bombing and accepting bribes in exchange for public works contracts. In 2015, the Kirchnerist candidate Daniel Scioli lost the presidential election to the conservative businessman Mauricio Macri, and Fernandez was indicted for corruption in 2018. However, in 2019, she was elected Vice President as the running mate of President Alberto Fernandez.